Kiss That Baby Goodby!

"It was a truly heroic victory for the champions of the Western Division."

Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda was asked at the start of the National League Championship Series last week in Los Angeles if he thought his team had any chance against the apparently all-powerful New York Mets. Lasorda gave his interrogator an avuncular pat on the shoulder and said, "Son, if I didn't think my chances were good, I'd want God to hit me with a bolt of lightning right now." Considering the improbable events that would succeed this rash pronouncement, it's a miracle Lasorda was not zapped on the spot. Lightning may not have struck, but all manner of misfortune—suspended pitchers, injured sluggers—would before the week was over. And yet, as the two teams left New York on Monday to resume their tense confrontation back in L.A., Lasorda's Dodgers were leading Davey Johnson's Mets three games to two.

"I don't know how we win and neither do you," slugger Kirk Gibson told reporters after L.A. whipped the Mets 7-4 on Monday. "But the fact is, we do." The Dodgers won that fifth game largely on the strength of Gibson's mighty three-run homer in the fifth inning and some gutsy relief pitching from Ricky Horton and Brian Holton. Those two held the fort after a three-run shot by Lenny Dykstra off Tim Belcher cut L.A.'s lead to 6-3 half an inning later. But lightning hit Gibson in the ninth when he felt his hamstring pop as he stole second base, the same hamstring—the left one—that had him limping down the stretch in the regular season. Indeed, Gibson limped aboard the plane carrying the Dodgers west for the final games of this exciting and sometimes maddening series. But that's the way it had gone for Lasorda's team all week.

The Dodgers had evened the series in a 5-4 12-inning nail-biter that concluded early Monday morning, just 11 hours and 15 minutes before Game 5 was to begin. It was a truly heroic victory for the champions of the Western Division, who entered the game without ace reliever Jay Howell, suspended Sunday afternoon for three days—later reduced to two—by National League president Bart Giamatti for applying pine tar to his glove during Saturday's tumultuous Game 3. Howell had enjoyed a splendid season in the bullpen (21 saves), but these playoffs added up to just one rotten thing after another for him. And his punishment, for what he and almost everyone else considered a marginal violation of a rule outlawing foreign substances on a pitcher's person, left his team literally shorthanded.

Lasorda's only hope Sunday night was that starter John Tudor could last long enough to give his relievers relief. But Tudor gave up back-to-back homers to Darryl Strawberry and Kevin Mc-Reynolds in the fourth and a double by McReynolds and a triple by Gary Carter in the sixth. Tudor had to go, and Lasorda was obliged to call forth six more pitchers from his depleted corps before this four-hour-29-minute conflict would be resolved.

Even under the best of circumstances, the Dodgers' chances looked grim entering the ninth inning. They were trailing 4-2, facing the awful prospect of a 3-1 New York advantage in the series and working against Doc Gooden, who had allowed just one hit and no runs since permitting two Dodgers to score in the first. The Doctor's dilemma had been his control and his inability to hold base runners close enough to prevent them from stealing at will.

The Mets' ferocious fans were on their feet, sensing victory as Gooden took the mound, but he walked John Shelby leading off and then Mike Scioscia stilled the clamoring hordes with a line-drive homer into the Mets' bullpen. That tied the game and sent it reeling into the next day. It was well past midnight when Gibson, batting only .063 for the series and feeling miserable about it, blasted a tremendous 12th-inning homer off the bottom of the scoreboard in deep right centerfield. Up to that point, Gibson had not gotten a ball out of the infield and had struck out twice. But his time came against reliever Roger McDowell. "These are the moments you dream about," he said later. "We were on the edge of extinction."

It wasn't long before they were back on that edge. Tim Leary, a starter called on by a desperate Lasorda to finish the game, gave up successive singles leading off the home half of the 12th. Gregg Jefferies flied out to Gibson in left, then Lasorda brought in lefty Jesse Orosco to pitch to his former teammates—specifically lefthanded hitters Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry. This was now a classic Mets last-gasp-win situation, and the crowd recognized it and rose once again in anticipation. Hernandez walked to load the bases, but Strawberry, who could have tied the game with a fly ball, hit a pop-up. Now it was McReynolds's turn. To face the righty hitter, Lasorda brought in, of all people, Orel Hershiser, Saturday's starter.

Hershiser had been in the clubhouse in the ninth when Scioscia tied the game. But he'd come whooping into the dugout after that dramatic wallop and volunteered to go to the pen as Lasorda's last resort. He said he was thinking of Howell as he confronted McReynolds and of what the Dodger bullpen ace might do in these circumstances. So he reared back and fired a 95-mph fastball, which McReynolds fouled back into the seats. "This was sandlot ball," Hershiser said later. "There was no thinking involved. Kevin knew I wasn't going to diddle around with him."

Two pitches later, McReynolds hit a blooper to shallow center that was painfully reminiscent of the hit by Carter that beat the Dodgers in Game 1. "It was déjà vu," said Hershiser. Well, not exactly. This time centerfielder Shelby was cheating in a few steps, and he was able to snag McReynolds's soft fly to end the seemingly endless game. When Hershiser reached the exuberant Dodger clubhouse, he was summoned to the phone. It was Howell calling from the team's hotel. "I love you," the banished reliever said to the converted starter. These were heartfelt words from a man understandably down in the dumps.